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SMYTH LIBRARY
COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

AS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE '‘ATLANTIC MONTHLY" FOR MAY, 1867.

ELIAS HOWE J? i

[sewing p.'asunk'

RALEIGH, N. CAR

Pamphlet Collection

Duke University Library

ELIAS HOWE, Jr., Inventor.

This Machine embraces all the principles ot Sewing
by Machinery embodied in all the Sewing Machines now
in use, and in its crude form makes perfect work at the
rate of 300 stitches a minute.

CUT O F THE

HISTORY

THE SEWING MACHINE.

BY JAMES P A R T O N .

In Cornhill, Boston, thirty years ago, there was a shop for the
manufacture and repair of nautical instruments and philosophical
apparatus, kept by Ari Davis. Mr. Davis was a very ingenious me-
chanic, who had invented a successful dovetailing machine, much
spoken of at the time, when inventions were not as numerous as they
are now. Being thus a noted man in his calling, he gave way to the
foible of affecting an oddity of dress and deportment. It pleased
him to sav extravagant and nonsensical things, and to go about sing-
ing, and to attract attention by unusual garments. Nevertheless, be-
ing a really skilful mechanic, he was frequently consulted by the
inventors and improvers of machinery, to whom he sometimes gave
a valuable suggestion.

In the year 1839 two men in Boston — one a mechanic and the other
a capitalist— were striving to produce a knitting machine, which pro-
ved to be a task beyond their strength. When the inventor was at
his wit’s end his capitalist brought the machine to the shop of Ari
Davis, to see if that eccentric genius could suggest the solution of
the difficulty, and make the machine work. The shop, resolving it-
self into a committee of the whole, gathered about the knitting ma-
chine and its proprietor, and were listening to an explanation of its
principle when Davis, in his wild, extravagant way, broke in with
these words: “What are you bothering yourselves with a knitting
machine for? Why don't you make a sewing machine ?”

“ I wish I could," said the capitalist; “but it can’t be done,"

“ O, yes it can,” said Davis ; “ I can make a sewing machine mv- .
self.”

“Well,” said the other, “you do it, Davis, and I’ll insure you an
independent fortune.”

History of the Sewing Machine.

There the conversation dropped, and it was never resumed. The
boastful remark of the master of the shop was considered merely one
of his sallies of affected extravagance, as it really was ; and the re-
sponse of the capitalist to it was uttered without a thought of pro-
ducing an effect. Nor did it produce any effect upon the person to
whom it was addressed. Davis never attempted to construct a sew-
ing machine.

Among the workmen who stood by and listened to this conversa-
tion was a young man from the country, a new hand, named Elias
Howe, then twenty years old. The person whom we have named the
capitalist, a well dressed and fine looking man, somewhat consequen-
tial in his manners, was an imposing figure in the eyes of this youth,
new to city ways, and he was much impressed with the emphatic as-
surance that a fortune was in store for the man who should invent a
sewing machine. He was the more struck with it because he had al-
ready amused himself with inventing some slight improvements, and
recently he had caught from Davis the habit of meditating new de-
vices. The spirit of invention, as all mechanics know, is exceedingly
contagious. One man in a shop who invents something that proves
successful will give the mania to half his companions, and the very
apprentices will be tinkering over a device after their day’s work is
done. There were other reasons, also, why a conversation so trifling
and accidental should have strongly impressed itself upon the mind
of this particular youth. Before that day the idea of sewing by the
aid of a machine had never occurred to him.

Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, was born in 1819,
at Spencer, in Massachusetts, where his father was a farmer and mill-
er. There was a grist mill, a saw mill and a shingle machine on the
place; but all of them together, with aid of the farm, yielded but a
slender revenue for a man blessed with eight children. It was a cus-
tom in that neighborhood, as in New England generally, forty years
ago, for families to carry on some kind of manufacture at which the
children could assist. At six years of age Elias Howe worked with
his brothers and sisters at sticking the wire teeth into strips of leather
for “cards,” used in the manufacture of cotton. As soon as he was
old enough he assisted upon the farm and in the mills, attending the
district school in the winter months. He is now of opinion that it
was the rude and simple mills belonging to his father which gave his
mind its bent toward machinery; but he cannot remember that this bent
was very decided, nor that he watched the operation of the mill with
much attention to the mechanical principles involved. He was a

History of the Sewing Machine.

^careless, playloving boy, and the first eleven years of his life passed
without an event worth recording. At eleven he went to “live out”
with a farmer of the neighborhood, intending to remain until he was
.twenty-one. A kind of inherited lameness rendered the hard work
of a farmer's boy distressing to him ; and, after trying it for a year,
he returned to his father’s house and resumed his place in the mills,
where he continued until he was sixteen.

One of his young friends returning from Lowell about this time,
gave him such a pleasing description of that famous town that he
was on fire to go thither. In 1835, with his parent’s reluctant consent,
he went to Lowell, and obtained a learner’s place in a large manu-
factory of cotton machinery, where he remained until the crash of
1837 closed the mills of Lowell and sent him adrift, a seeker after
work. He went to Cambridge, under the shadow of venerable
Harvard. He found employment there in a large machine shop, and
was set at work upon the new hemp carding machinery invented
by Professor Treadwell. His cousin, Nathaniel P. Banks, since
Speaker of the House of Representatives and Major General, work-
ed in the same shop and boarded in the same house with him. After
working a few months at Cambridge, Elias Howe found employment
more congenial in Boston, at the shop of Ari Davis, where the con-
versation occurred which we have just related.

- Judging merely by appearances, no one would have pitched up-
on him as the person likely to make one of the revolutionizing inven-
tions of the age. Undersized, curly headed, and exceedingly fond of
his joke, he was, at twenty, more a boy than a man. Nor was he very
proficient in his trade, nor inclined to put forth extra exertion. Stea-
dy labor was always irksome to him, and frequently, owing to the
■constitutional weakness to which we have alluded, it was painful. He
was not the person to seize an idea with avidity and work it out with
the passionate devotion of a Watt or a Goodyear. The only immedi-
ate effect upon him of the conversation in the shop of Mr. Davis
was to induce a habit of reflecting upon the art of sewing, watching
the process as performed by hand, and wondering whether it was
within the compass of the mechanic arts to do it by machinery. His
uppermost thought in those years was, what a waste of power to em-
ploy the ponderous human arm, and all the intricate machinery of
the fingers, in performing an operation so simple, and for which a ro-
bin’s strength would suffice! Why not draw twelve threads through
at once, or fifty ? And sometimes, while visiting a shop where army
-and navy clothing was made, he would look at the heaps of unsewed

History of the Sewing Machine.

garments, all cut alike, all requiring the same stitch, the same num-
ber of stitches, and the same kind of seam, and say to himself, “ What
a pity this cannot be done by machinery ! It is the very work for a
machine to do.” Such thoughts, however, only flitted through his
mind now and then; he was still far from any serious attempt to con-
struct a machine for sewing up the blue trowsers.

At twenty-one, being still a journeyman machinist, earning nine
dollars a week, he married; and, in time, children came with Incon-
venient frequency. Nine dollars is a fixed quantity, or, rather, it was
then j and the addition of three little mouths to be fed from it, ar.d
three little backs to be clothed by it, converted the vivacious father into
a thoughtful and plodding citizen. His day’s labor at this time, when
he was upon heavy work, was so fatiguing to him that, on reaching
his home, he would sometimes be too exhausted to eat, and he would
go to bed, longing as we have heard him say, “ to lie in bed forever
and ever.” It was the pressure of poverty and this extreme fatigue

not be ANOTHER Stitch ?'

History of the Sewing Machine.

that caused him, about the year 1843, to set about the work of invent-
ing the machine which he had heard four years before would be an
“ independent fortune” to the inventor. Then it was that he caught
the inventor’s mania, which gives its victims no rest and no peace till
they have accomplished the work to which they have abandoned them-
selves.

He wasted many months on a false scent. When he began to ex-
periment his only thought was to invent a machine which should do
what he saw his wife doing when she sewed. He took it for granted
that sewing must be that , and his first device was a needle pointed at
both ends, with the eye in the middle, that should work up and down
through the cloth, and carry the thread through it at each thrust.

Hundreds of hours, by night and by day, he brooded over this con-
ception, and cut many a basket of chips in the endeavor to make some-
thing that would work such a needle so as to form a common stitch.
He could not do it. One day, in 1844, the thought flashed upon him :
Is it necessary that .a machine should imitate the performance of the
hand ? May there not be another stitch ? This was the crisis of the
invention. The idea of using two threads, and forming a stitch by the
aid of a shuttle and a curved needle, with the eye near the point,
soon occurred to him, and he felt that he had invented a sewing ma-
chine. It was in the month of October, 1844, that he was able to con-
vince himself, by a rough model of wood and wire, that such a machine
as he had projected would sew.

At this time he had ceased to be a journeyman mechanic. His father
had removed to Cambridge, to establish a machine for cutting palm
leaf into strips for hats — a machine invented by a brother of the elder
Howe. Father and son were living in the same house, into the gar-
ret of which the son had put a lathe and a few machinist’s tools, and
was doing a little work on his own account. His ardor in the work
of invention. robbed him, however, of many hours that might have
been employed, his friends thought, to better advantage by the father
of a family. He was extremely poor, and his father had lost his palm
leaf machine by a fire. With an invention in his head that has since
given him more than two hundred thousand dollars in a single year,
and which is now yielding a profit to more than one firm of a thous-
and dollars a day, he could scarcely provide for his little family the
necessaries of life ; nor could this invention be tested except by mak-
ing a machine of steel and iron, with the exactness and finish of a
clock. At the present time, with a machine before him for a model,
a good mechanic could not, with his ordinary tools, construct a sew-

History of the Sewing Machine.

ing machine in less than two months, nor at a less expense than three-
hundred dollars. Elias Howe had only his model in his head, and
he had not money enough to pay for the raw material requisite for
one machine.

There was living then at Cambridge a young friend and schoolmate-
of the inventor, named George Fisher, a coal and wood merchant, who-
had recently inherited some property, and was not disinclined to
speculate with some of it. The two friends had been in the habit of
conversing tegether upon the project of the sewing machine. When
the inventor had reached his final conception, in the fall of 1844, he
succeeded in convincing George Fisher of its feasibility, which led
to a partnership between them for bringing the invention into use.
The terms of this partnership were these : George Fisher was to re-
ceive into his house Elias Howe and his family, board them while
Elias was making the machine, give up his garret for a workshop,
and provide money for material and tools, to the extent of five hun-
dred dollars ; in return for which he was to become the proprietor of
one-half the patent, if the machine proved to be worth patenting. Early
in December, 1844, Elias Howe moved into the house of George
Fisher, set up his shop in the garret, gathered materials about him
and went to work. It was a very small, low garret, but it sufficed
for one zealous, brooding workman, who did not wish for gossiping
visitors.

It is strange how the great things come about in this world. This
George Fisher, by whose timely aid such an inestimable boon was
conferred upon womankind, was led into the enterprise as much by
good nature as by expectation of profit, and it was his easy acquisi-
tion of his money that made it easy for him to risk it. So far as we
know, neither of the parties indulged in any dream of benevolence.
Howe wanted to invent a sewing machine to deliver himself from
that painful daily toil, and Fisher was inclined to aid an old friend,
and not disinclined to own a share in a valuable patent. The great-
est doers of good have usually proceeded in the same homely spirits
Thus Shakespeare wrote, thus Columbus sailed, thus Watt invented,
thus Newton discovered. It seems, too, that George Fisher was
Elias Howe’s only convert. “ I believe,” testified George Fisher, in
one of the great sewing machine suits, “ I was the onlv one of his
neighbors and friends in Cambridge that had an}' confidence in the
success of the invention. He was generally looked upon as very
visionary in undertaking anything of the kind, and I was thought
very foolish in assisting him.” It is the old story.

History of the Sewing Machine.

All the winter of 1844-45 Mr. Howe worked at his machine. His
conception of what he intended to produce was so clear and complete
that he was little delayed by failures, but worked on with almost as
much certainty and steadiness as though he had a model before him.
In April he sewed a seam by his machine. By the middle of May,
1845, he had completed his work. In July he sewed by his machine
all the seams of two suits of woolen clothes — one suit for Mr. Fisher
and the other for himself — the sewing of both of which outlasted the
cloth. This first of all sewing machines, after crossing the ocean
many times, and figuring as a dumb but irrefutable witness in many
a court, may still be seen at Mr. Howe’s office in Broadway, where,
within these few weeks, it has sewed seams in cloth at the rate of
three hundred stitches a minute. It is agreed by all disinterested
persons (Professor Renwuck among others) who have examined this
machine, that Elias Howe, in making it, carried the invention of the
sewing machine farther on towards its complete and final utility than
any other inventor has ever brought a first rate invention at the first
trial. It is a little thing, that first machine, which goes into a box of
the capacity of about a cubic foot and a half. Every contrivance in
it has been since improved, and new devices have been added, but no
successful sewing machine has ever been made, of all the seven hun-
dred thousand now in existence, which does not contain some of the
esential devices of this first attempt. We make this assertion without
hesitation or reserve, because it is, we believe, the one point upon
which all the great makers are agreed. Judicial decisions have repeat-
edly affirmed it.

Like all the other great inventors, Mr. Howe found that, when he
had completed his machine, his difficulties had but begun. After he
had brought the machine to the point of making a few stitches, he
went to Boston one day to get a tailor to come to Cambridge and
arrange some cloth for sewing, and give his opinion as to the quality
of the work done by the machine. The comrads of the man to whom
he first applied disuaded him from going, alleging that a sewing ma-
chine, if it worked well, must necessarily reduce the whole fraternity
'of tailors to beggary; and this proved to be the unchangeable con-
viction of the tailors for the next ten years. It is probable that the
machines first made would have been destroyed by violence but for
another fixed opinion of the tailors, which was that no machine could
be made that would really answer the purpose. It seems strange
now that the tailors of Boston could have persisted so long in such
an opinion, for Mr. Howe, a few weeks after he had finished his first

History of the Sewing Machine.

model, gave them an opportunity to see what it could do. He placed
his little engine in one of the rooms of the Quincy Hall Clothing
Manufactory, and, seating himself before it, offered to sew up any
seam that might be brought to him. One unbelieving tailor after
another brought a garment, and saw its long seams sewed perfectly,
at the rate of two hundred and fifty stitches a minute, which was
about seven times as fast as the work could be done bv hand. For

The first Contest betzveen Hand and Machine Sewing at Quincy Hall , Boston.

two weeks he sat there daily, and sewed up seams for all who chose
to bring them to him. He amused himself at intervals in executing-
rows of ornamental stitching, and he showed the strength ot the
machine by sewing the thick plaited skirts of frock coats to the
bodies. At last lie challenged five of the swiftest seamstresses in the
establishment to sew a race with the machine. Ten seams ot equal
length ^were prepared for sewing, five of which were laid by the
machine, and the other five were given to the girls. The gentleman
who held the watch, and who was to decide the wager, testified upon

.History of the Sewing Machine.

oath that the five girls were the fastest sewers that could, be found,
and that they sewed as “ fast as they could— much faster than they
were in the habit of sewing” — faster than they could have kept on
for one hour. Nevertheless, Mr. Howe finished his five seams a little
sooner than the girls finished their five ; and the umpire, who was
himself a tailor, has sworn that “the work done on the machine was
the neatest and strongest.”

Upon reading testimony like this we wonder that manufacturers
did not instantly set Mr. Howe at work making sewing machines.
Not one was ordered ; not a tailor encouraged him by word or deed.
Some objected that the machine did not make the whole garment ;
others dreaded to encounter the fierce opposition of the journeymen ;
others really thought it would beggar all hand sewers, and refrained
from using it on principle ; others admitted the utility of the machine,
and the excellence of the work done by it, but, said they, “ We are
doing well as we are, and fear to make such a change.” The great cost
of the machine was a most serious obstacle to its introduction. A year
or two since Mr. Howe caused a copy of his first machine to be made for
exhibition in his window, and it cost him two hundred and fifty dollars.
In 1845 he could not have furnished his machine for less than three
hundred dollars, and a large clothier or shirt maker would have requir-
ed thirty or forty of them.

The inventor was not disheartened by the result of the introduction
of the machine. The next thing was to get the invention patented,
and Mr. Howe again shut himself up in George Fisher’s garret for
three or four months, and made another machine for deposit in the
Patent Office. In the spring of 1846, there being no prospect of rev-
enue from the invention, he engaged as “ engineer ” upon one of the
railroads terminating at Boston, and “ drove ” a locomotive daily for
some weeks ; but the labor proved too much for his strength, and he
was compelled to give it up. Late in the summer the model and the
documents being ready for the Patent Office, the two associates treated
themselves to a journey to Washington, where the wonderful machine
was exhibited at a Fair, with no results except to amuse the crowd.
September 10, 1846, the patent was issued, and soon after the young
men returned to Cambridge.

George Fisher was now totally discouraged. He had maintained
the inventor and his family for many months; he had provided the
money for the tools and material for two machines ; he .had paid the
expenses of getting the patent and of the journey to Washington; he
had advanced in all about two thousand dollars, and he saw not the

History of the Sewing Machine.

remotest probability of the invention becoming profitable. Elias
Howe moved back to his father's house, and George Fisher consider-
ed his advance in the light of a dead loss. “ I had lost confidence.” he
has since testified, “ in the machine’s ever paying anything.”

But mothers and inventors do not give up their offspring so.
America having rejected the invention, Mr. Howe resolved to offer it
to England. In October, 1846, his brother, Amasa B. Howe, with the
assistance of their father, took passage in the steerage of a sailing
packet, and conveyed one of the machines to London. An English-

“ I am Poory but will not Kneel to one who Treads your Soil."

man was the first manufacturer who had faith enough in the American
sewing machine to invest money in it. In Cheapside Amasa Howe
came upon the shop of William Thomas, who emploved, according to
his own account, five thousand persons in the manufacture of corsets,
umbrellas, valises, carpet bags and shoes. William Thomas examined
and approved the machine. Necessity, as Poor Richard remarks, can-
not make a good bargain; but the bargain which it made on this oc-

History of the Sewing Machine. 1 1

casion, through the agency of Amasa B. Howe, was signally bad. He
sold to Mr. Thomas, for two hundred and fifty pounds sterling, the
machine he had brought with him, and the right to use as many others
in his own business as he desired. There was also a verbal under-
standing that Mr. Thomas was to patent the invention in England,,
and, if the machine came into use there, he was to pay the inventor
three pounds on every machine sold. That was an excellent day’s
work for William Thomas, of Cheapside. The verbal part of the bar-
gain has never been carried out. He patented the invention, and ever
since the machines began to be used all sewing machines made in
England, or imported into England, have paid tribute to him at the
rate of ten pounds or less for each machine. Elias Howe is of opin-
ion that the investment of that two hundred and fifty pounds has
yielded a profit of one million dollars. Mr. Thomas further proposed
to engage the inventor to adapt the machine to the work upon corsets,
offering him the munificent stipend of three pounds a week, and to
defray the expense of workshop, tools and material.

Amasa B. Howe returned to Cambridge with this offer. America
being still insensible to the charms of the new invention, and the two
hundred and fifty pounds having been immediately absorbed by the
long accumulating necessities of the family, and there being no pros-
pect of advantageous employment at home, Elias Howe accepted the
offer, and both brothers set sail for London February 5th, 1847. They
went in the steerage and cooked their own provisions. William
Thomas provided a shop and its requisites, and even advanced money
for the passage to England of the inventor’s family, who joined him
soon — wife and three children. After eight months of labor the in-
ventor succeeded in adapting his machine to the purposes of the stay-
maker, and when this was done the stay-maker apparently desired to
get rid of the inventor. He required him to do the miscellaneous re-
pairs, and took the tone with him which the ignorant purse-holder, in
all lands, is accustomed to hold in his dealings with those to whom lie
pays wages. The Yankee, of course, resented this behavior, and Wil-
Thomas discharged Elias Howe from his employment.

To be a poor stranger, with a sick wife and three children in
America, is to be in a purgatory that is provided with a practicable
door into paradise ; to be such a person in London is to be in a hell
without visible outlet.

Since undertaking to write this little history of the sewing machine
we have gone over about thirty thousand pages of printed testimony,
taken in the numerous suits to which sewing machine patents have

History of the Sewing Machine.

1 2

given rise. Of all these pages the- most interesting are those from
which we can gather the history of Elias Howe during the next few
months. From a chance acquaintance, named Charles Inglis, a
coachmaker, who proved to be a true friend, he hired a small room
for a workshop, in which, after borrowing a few tools, he began to
construct his fourth sewing machine. Long before it was finished he
saw that he must reduce his expenses or leave his machine unfinished.
From three rooms lie removed his family to one, and that a small one
in the cheapest quarter of Surrey. Nor did that economy suffice; and
he resolved to send his family home while he could, and trust to the
machine in hand for the means to follow them.

41 Loan me a few Shillings , that I may fay the Washing and send my sick wife and children

to America.'1

“ Before his wife left London,” testifies Mr. Inglis, ‘‘he had fre-
quently borrowed money from me in sums of five pounds, and re-
quested me to get him credit for provisions. On the evening ot Mrs.
Howe’s departure the night was very wet and stormy, and, her health

History of the Sewing Machine.

In a low London Garret , Cooking his Food , he gazes on his Machine , exclaiming , ,l / will Pawn
this and Start for America."

After three or four months of labor the machine was finished. It
tvas worth fifty pounds. The only customer he could find for it was
a workingman of his acquaintance, who offered five pounds for it if
he could have time to pay it in. The inventor was obliged to accept
this offer. The purchaser gave his note for the five pounds, which
Charles Inglis succeeded in selling to another mechanic for four^
pounds. To pay his debts and his expenses home, Mr. Howe pawned

being delicate, she was unable to walk to the ship. He had no money
to pay the cab hire, and he borrowed a few shillings from me to pay
it,' which he repaid by pledging some of his clothing. Some linen
came home from his washerwoman for his wife and children, on the
day of her departure ; she could not take it with her, on account of
not having money to pay the woman.” After the departure of his
family the solitary inventor was still more severely pinched. “ He
has borrowed a shilling from me,” says Mr. Inglis, “for the purpose
of buying beans, which I saw him cook and eat in his own room.”

History of the Sewing Machine.

his precious first machine and his letters patent. “ He drew a hand-
cart/with his baggage on it, to the ship, to save the expense of cart-
age;” and again he took passage in the steerage, along with his
Engl ish friend, Charles Inglis. His brother Amasa had long before
returned to America.

In April, 1849, Elias Howe landed in New York, after an absence
of two years from the country, with half a crown in his pocket. Four
years had nearly elapsed since the completion of his first machine,
and this small piece of silver was the net result of his labors upon
that invention. He and his friend went to one of the cheapest emi-
grant boarding houses,- and Elias Howe sought employment in the
machine shops, which luckily he found without delay. The news
reached him soon that his wife was dying of consumption, but he had
not the money for a journey to Cambridge. In a few days, however,
he received ten dollars from his father, and he was thus enabled to
reach his wife’s bedside and receive her last breath. He had no
clothes except those he daily wore, and was obliged to borrow a suit
from his brother-in-law in which to appear at the funeral. It was
remarked by his old friends that his natural gayety of disposition
was quite quenched by the severity of his recent trials. He was ex-
tremely down-cast and worn. He looked like a man just out after a
long and agonizing sickness. Soon came intelligence that the ship
in which he had embarked all his household goods had been wreck-
ed off Cape Cod, and was a total loss.

But now he was among friends who hastened to relieve his imme-
diate necessities, and who took care of his children. He was soon at
work ; not, indeed, at his beloved machine, but at work which his
friends considered much more rational. He was again a journey-
man machinist, at weekly wages.

As nature never bestows two eminent gifts upon the same individ-
ual, the man who makes a great invention is seldom the man who
prevails upon the public to use it. Every Watt needs his Boultox.
Neither George Fisher nor Elias Howe possessed the executive
force requisite for so difficult a piece of work as the introduction of
a machine which then cost two or three hundred dollars to make, and
upon which a purchaser had to take lessons as upon the piano, and
which the whole body of tailors regarded with dread, aversion or con-
tempt. It was reserved, therefore, for other men to educate the people
into availing themselves of this exqusite labor-saving apparatus.

Upon his return home, after his residence in London, Elias Howe
discovered, much to his surprise, that the sewing machine had be-

History of the Sewing Machine.

come celebrated, though its inventor appeared forgotten. Several
ingenious mechanics, who had only heard or read of a machine for
sewing, and others who had seen the Howe machine, had turned
their attention to inventing in the same direction, or to improving
upon Mr. Howe’s devices. We have before us three handbills, which
show that, in 1849, a sewing machine was carried about in Western
New York and exhibited as a curiosity, at a charge of twelve and a
half cents for admission. At Ithaca the following bill was posted
about in May, 1849, a few weeks after the inventor’s return from
Europe :

“A GREAT CURIOSITY!!

THE

YANKEE SEWING MACHINE

IS NOW

Exhibiting at this Place

From 8 A. M. to 3 P. M.”

The public were informed, by other bills, that this wonderful ma-
chine could make a pair of pantaloons in forty minutes, and do the
work of six hands. The people of Ithaca, it appears, attended the
exhibition in great numbers, and many ladies carried home speci-
mens of the sewing, which they preserved as curiosities. But this
-was not all. Some machinists and others in Boston and elsewhere,
were making sewing machines in a rude, imperfect manner, several
of which had been sold to manufacturers, and were in daily operation.

The inventor, upon inspecting these crude products, saw that they
all contained the devices which he had first combined and patented.
Poor as he was, he was not disposed to submit to this infringement,
and he began forthwith to prepare for war against the infringers.
When he entered upon this litigation he was a journeyman machin-
ist; his machine and his letters patent were in pawn three thousand
miles away, and the patience, if not the purses of his friends was ex-
hausted. When the contest ended a leading branch of the national
industry was tributary to him. The first step was to get back from
England that first machine and the document issued from the Patent
Office. In the course of the summer of 1849 he contrived to raise the
hundred dollars requsite for their deliverance, and the Hon. Ansom
Burlingame, who was going to London kindly undertook to hunt
them up in the wilderness of Surrey. He found them, and sent them
home in the autumn of the same year The inventor wrote polite
letters to the infringers, warning them to desist, and offering to sell

10 History of the Sewing Machine.

them licenses to continue. All but one of them, it appears, were dis-
posed to acknowledge his rights and to accept his proposal. That
one induced the others to resist, and nothing remained but to resort
to the courts. Assisted by his father the inventor began a suit, but
he was soon made aware that justice is a commodity much beyond
the means of a journeyman mechanic. He tried to rc-awaken the
faith of George Fisker, and induce him to furnish the sinews of war,
but George Fisker had had enough of the sewing machine ; he would
sell his half of the patent for what it had cost him, but he would ad-
vance no more money. Mr. Howe then looked about for some one
who would buy George Fisher’s share. He found three men who
agreed to do this, and tried to do it, but could not raise the money.

Mr. Howe again in America , Encounters the Infringers oj his Patent.

The person to whom he was finally indebted for the means of se-
curing his rights was George \V. Bliss, of Massachusetts, who was
prevailed upon to buy Mr. Fisher’s share of the patent, and to ad-
vance the money needful for carrying on the suits. He did this only

History of the Sewing Machine. 17

as a speculation. He thought there might something in this new"
notion of sewing by machinery, and if there was, the machine must
become universal and yield large revenues. This might be; he even
thought it probable ; still, so weak was his faith, that he consented to
embark in the enterprise only on condition of his being secured
against loss by a mortgage on the farm of the inventor’s father.
This generous parent — who is still living in Cambridge — came once
more to the rescue, and thus secured his son’s fortune. The suits
wrent on; but, as they went on at the usual pace of patent cases, the
inventor had abundant leisure to push his invention out of doors.

Towards the close of 1850 wre find him in New York, superintend-
ing the construction of fourteen sewdng machines at a shop in Gold
street, adjoining which he had a small office, furnished with a five
dollar desk and two fifty' cent chairs. One of these machines was ex-
hibited at the Fair in Castle Garden, in October, 1851, where, for the
space of two vreeks, it sewed gaiters, pantaloons and other work.
Several of them were sold to a boot maker in Worcester, who used
them for sewdng boot legs with perfect success. Two or three others
were daily operated in Broadway, to the satisfaction of the purchas-
ers. We can say, therefore, of Elias Howe, that besides inventing
the sewing machine, and besides making the first machine with his
own hands, he brought his invention to the point of its successful
employment in manufacture.

While he was thus engaged events occurred which seriously threat-
ened to rob him of all the benefit of his invention. The ingfringers
of his patent were not men of large means nor of extraordinary
energy, and they had no “case” whatever. ,There was the machine
which Elias Howe had made in 1845, there were his letters patent,
and all the sewing machines then known to be in existence were es-
sentially the same as his; but in August, 1850, a man became invol-
ved with the infringers who was of very different mettle from those
steady going Yankees, and capable ot carrying on a much more vig-
orous warfare than they ; this was that Isaac Merritt Singer who
has since so often astonished the Fifth Avenue, and is now amusing
Paris by the oddity and splendor of his equipages. He urns then a
poor and baffled adventurer. He had been an actor and manager of
a theatre, and had tried his hand at various enterprises, none of
which had been very successful. In 1850 he invented (as he has
since sworn) a carving machine, and having obtained an order for
one from Boston, he made it, and took it himself to Boston. In the
shop in which he placed his carving machine he saw for the first

1 8 ' History of the Sewing Machine.

time, several sewing machines brought there for repairs. Orson C.
Phelps, the proprietor of the shop (Mr. Singer says), showed him
one of these machines, and said to him that “ if it could be improved
so as to render it capable of doing a greater variety of work, it would
be a good thing,” and if Mr. Singer could accomplish this, he could
get more money from sewing than from carving machines; where-
upon Mr. Singer contemplated the apparatus, and at night meditated
upon it with so much success that he was able in the morning to ex-
hibit a drawing of an improved machine. This sketch (so he swears)'
contained three original devices, which to this day form part of the
sewing machine made by the Singer Company. This sketch being
approved, the next thing was to construct a model. Mr. Singer
having no money, the purchaser of his carving machine agreed to ad-
vance fifty dollars for the purpose, upon which Mr. Singer flew at
the work like a tiger.

“I worked,” he says, “day and night, sleeping but three or four
hours out of the twenty-four, and eating generally but once a day, as
I knew I must get a machine made for forty dollars or not get it
at all. The machine was completed the night of the eleventh day
from the day it was commenced. About nine o’clock that evening
we got the parts of the machine together and commenced trying it.
The first attempt to sew was unsuccessful, and the workmen, who
were tired out with almost unremitting work, left me one by one, in-
timating that it was a failure. I continued trying the machine, with
Zieber” (who furnished the forty dollars) “to hold the lamp for me,
but, in the nervous condition to which I had been reduced by inces-
sant work and anxiety, was unsuccssful in getting the machine to
sew tight stitches. About midnight I started with Zieber to the
hotel where I boarded. Upon the way we sat down on a pile of
boards, and Zieber’ asked me if I had noticed that the loose loops
of thread on the upper side of the cloth came from the needle. It
then flashed upon me that I had forgotten to adjust the tension upon
the needle thread. Zieber and I went back to the shop. I adjusted
the tension, tried the machine, and sewed five stitches perfectly, when
the thread broke. The perfection of those stitches satisfied me that the
machine was a success, and I stopped work, went to the hotel and
had a sound sleep. By three o’clock the next day I had the machine
finished, and started with it to New York, where I emploved Mr.
Charles Keller to get a patent for it.”

Such was the introduction to the sewing machine of the man
whose energy and audacity forced the machine upon an unbelieving

History of the Sewing Machine.

public. He borrowed a little money, and, forming a partnership
with his Boston patron and the machinist in whose shop he had
made his model, began the manufacture of the machines. Great and
numerous were the difficulties which arose in his path, but one by
one he overcame them all. He advertised, he travelled, he sent out
agents, he procured the insertion of articles in the newspapers, he ex-
hibited the machine at fairs in town and country. Several times he
was upon the point of failure, but in the nick of time something al-
ways happened to save him, and year after year he advanced toward
an assured success. We well remember his early efforts, when he had
only the back part of a small store in Broadway and a little shop over
a railroad depot ; and we remember also the general incredulity with
regard to the value of the machine with which his name was identified.
Even after hearing him explain it at great length we were very far
from expecting to see him, one day, riding to the Central Park in a
French diligence , drawn by five horses paid for by the sewing machine.

Mr. Singer had not been long in the business before he was remind-
ed by Elias Howe that he was infringing his patent of 5,346. The
adventurer threw all his energy and his growing means into the contest
against the original inventor. The great object of the infringing
interest was to discover an earlier inventor than Elias Howe. For
this purpose the patent records of England, France and the United
States were most diligently searched; encyclopaedias were examined,
and an attempt was even made to show that the Chinese had possessed
a sewing machine for ages. Nothing, however, was discovered that
Avould have made a plausible defence until Mr. Singer joined the in-
fringers. He ascertained that a New York mechanic, named Walter
Hunt, who had a small machine shop up a narrow alley in Abingdon
Square, had made, or tried to make a sewing machine as early as 1832.
Walter Hunt was found. He had attempted to invent a sewing ma-
chine in 1832 ; and, what was more important, he had hit upon the
shuttle as the means of forming the stitch. He said, too, that he had
made a machine which did sew a little, but very imperfectly, and, after
wearying himself with fruitless experiments, he had thrown it aside.
Parts of this machine, after a great deal of trouble, mere actually found
among a quantity of rubbish in the garret of a house in Gold street.
Here was a discovery ! Could Mr. Hunt take these parts, all rusty
and broken, into his shop, and complete the machine as originally
made, so that it would sew? He thought he could. Ursred on bv the
indefatigable Singer, supplied by him with money, and stimulated by
the prospect of fortune, Walter Hunt tried hard and long to put his

History of the Sewing Machine.

machine together, and when he found that he could not, he employed
an ingenious inventor to aid him in the work; but their united inge-
nuity was unequal to the performance of an impossibility — the ma-
chine could not be got to sew a seam. The fragments found in the
garret did, indeed, demonstrate that in 1832 Walter Hunt had been
upon the track of the invention ; but they also proved that he had given
up the chase in despair long before coming up with the game.

Elias Howe in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts claiming his Rights.

And this the Courts have uniformly held. In the year 1S54, after a
long trial, Judge Sprague, of Massachusetts, decided that “the plain-
tiff’s patent is valid, and the defendant’s machine is an infringement.”
The plaintiff was Elias Howe; the real infringer, I. M. Singer.
Judge Sprague further observed, that “there is no evidence in this
case that leaves a shadow of doubt that, for all the benefits conferred
upon the public by the introduction of a sewing machine the public
are indebted to Elias Howe.”

This decision was made when nine years had elapsed since the

History of the Serving Machine. 21

completion of the first machine, and when eight years of the term of
the first patent had expired. The patent, however, even then, was so
little productive, that the inventor, embarrassed as he was, was able,
upon £he death of his partner, Mr. Bliss, to buy his share of it. He
thus became, for the first time, the sole proprietor of his patent ; and
this occurred just when it was about to yield a princely revenue. From
a few hundreds a year his income rapidly increased, until it went be-
yond two hundred thousand dollars. He has received in all, up to the
present time, about seventeen hundred thousand dollars. By the time

Elias Hovoe the complete victor.

the extension of the patent expires, September 10, 1867, the amount
will not fall short of the round two millions. As Mr. Howe has
devoted twenty-seven years of his life to the invention and develop-
ment of the sewing machine, the public have compensated him at the
rate of seventy-five thousand dollars a year. It has cost him, however,
immense sums to defend his rights, and he is now very far from being
the richest of the sewing machine kings. He has the inconvenient

2 2 • History of the Sewing Machine.

reputation of being worth four millions, which is exactly ten times the
value of his present estate.

So much for the inventor. In speaking of the improvers of the
sewing machine, we know not how to be cautious enough ; for scarcely
anything can be said on that branch of the subject which some one has
not an interest to deny. We the other day looked over the testimony
taken in one of the suits which Messrs. Grover & Baker have had to
sustain in defence of their well known “stitch.” The testimony in
that single case fills two immense volumes, containing three thousand
five hundred and seventy-five pages. At theWHEELER & Wilson estab-
lishment on Broadway there is a library of similar volumes, resembling
in appearance a quantity of London and Paris Directories. .The
Singer Company are equally blessed with sewing machine literature,
and Mr. Howe has chests full of it. We learn from these volumes
that there is no useful device connected with the apparatus the inven-
tion of which is not claimed by more than one person. And no
wonder. If to-day the ingenious reader could invent the slightest
real improvement to the sewing machine, so real that a machine having
it Avould possess an obvious advantage over all machines that had it
not, and he should sell the right to use that improvement at so low
a rate as fifty cents for each machine, he would find himself in the
enjoyment of an income of one hundred thousand dollars per annum.
The consequence is, that the number pf patents already issued in the
United States for sewing machines and improvements in sewing ma-
chines, is about nine hundred. Perhaps thirty of these patents are val-
uable, but the great improvements are not more than ten in number,
and most of those were made in the infancy of the machine.

By general consent of the able men who are now conducting the
sewing machine business (including Elias Howe), the highest place in
’the list of improvers is assigned to Allen B. Wilson. This most in-
genious gentleman completed a practical sewing machine early in
1849, without ever having seen one, and without having any know-
ledge of the devices of Elias Howe, who was then buried alive in
London. Mr. Wilson, at the time, was a very young journeyman
cabinet maker, living in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. After that despe-
rate contest with difficulty which inventors usually experience he pro-
cured a patent for his machine, improved it, and formed a connec-
tion with a young carriage maker of his acquaintance, Nathaniel
Wheeler, who had some capital, and thus was founded the house of
Wheeler & Wilson. These gentlemen were honest enough in oppos-
ing the claim of Elias Howe, since Mr. Wilson' knew himself to be

History of the Sewing Machine.

an original inventor, and he employed devices not to be found in Mr.
Howe’s machine. Instead of a shuttle, he used a “rotating hook” — a
device as ingenious as any in mechanism. The “ four-motion feed,” too
was another of Mr. Wilson’s masterly inventions, sufficient of itself to
stamp him an inventor of genius. Nothing, therefore, was more natu-
ral than that Messrs. Wheeler & Wilson should regard Mr. Howe’s
charge of infringement with astonishment and indignation, and join
in the contest against him.

Messrs. Grover & Baker were early in the field. William O.
Grover was a Boston tailor, whose attention was directed to the sew-
ing machine soon after Mr. Howe’s return from Europe. It was he
who, after numberless trials, invented the devices by which the “ Gro-
ver & Baker” stitch is formed.

When, by the decision of the courts, all the makers had become
tributary to Elias Howe, paying him a certain sum for each machine
made, then a most violent warfare broke out among the leading
houses — Singer & Company, Wheeler & Wilson, Grover & Baker —
each accusing the others concerned of infringment. At Albany, in
1856, these causes were to be tried, and parties saw before them a good
three months’ work in court. By a lucky chance one member of this
happy family had not entirely lost his temper, and was still in some
degree capable of using his intellect. It occurred to this wise head
that no matter who invented first, or who second, there were then as-
sembled at Albany the men who, among them, held patents which con-
trolled the whole business of making sewing machines, ’and that it

would be infinitely better for them to combine and control than to

♦

contend with and devour one another. They all came into this opinion,
and thus was formed the “ Combination ” of which such terrible things
are uttered by the surreptitious makers of sewing machines. Elias
Howe, who is the best tempered man in the world, and only too easy
in matters pecuniary, had the complaisance to join this confederation,
only insisting that at least twenty-four licenses should be issued by it,
so as to prevent the manufacture from sinking into a monopoly. By
the terms of this agreement Mr. Howe was to receive five dollars
upon every machine sold in the United States, and one dollar upon
each one exported. The other parties agreed to sell licenses to use
their various devices, or any of them, at the rate of fifteen dollars for
each machine ; but no license was to be granted without the con-
sent of all the parties. It was further agreed that part of the license
fees received should be reserved as a fund for the prosecution of in-
fringers. This agreement remained unchanged until the renewal of

24 History of the Sewing Machine.

Mr. Howe’s patent in i860, when his fee was reduced from five dollars
to one dollar, and that of the combination from fifteen dollars to seven.
That is to say, every sewing machine honestly made, pays Elias Howe
one dollar ; and every sewing machine made, which includes any de-
vice or devices, the patent for which is held by any other member
of the Combination, pays seven dollars to the Combination. Of this
seven dollars Mr. Howe receives his one, and the other six go into
the fund for the defence of the patents against infringers.

For example, take the Wilcox & Gibbs machine — the only One, as
far as we know, which was not invented by a Yankee, or in Yankee land.
Twelve years ago, Mr. James E. A. Gibbs, a Virginia farmer, saw in the
Scientific American a picture of a sewing machine. Being a man of a
decided turn for mechanics he examined the drawing with great at-
tention ; but as it exhibited only the upper part of the machine, he
could form no idea of the contrivance underneath by which the stitch
was formed. . The ivorking of the apparatus was, however, very plain,
down to the moment when the needle perforates the cloth, and he fell
in the habit of musing upon the course of events after the point of the
needle was lost to view. The result of his cogitations, aided by infi-
nite whittling, was the ingenious little revolving hook which consti-
tutes the peculiarity of the Wilcox & Gibbs machine. But that
machine, besides employing Mr. Gibb’s invention, uses the feeding
apparatus of Allen B. Wilson and the eye-pointed needle of Elias
Howe. It is therefore tributary to the Combination, and pays it
seven dollars for each machine. A similar historv could be related
of the “Florence,” the “Weed,” the “Elliptic,” the “Empire,” and
others. All these machines are worth examination by those who are
curious in mechanical devices.

The business of making and selling sewing machines, which was
not fairly started before 1856, has attained a truly wonderful devel-
opment. Twenty-seven firms or companies have been engaged in it
at one time, a few of which have lately withdrawn, leaving about
twenty still in the business. One of these has twenty-four stores of its
own in the large cities of the world, besides a much larger number of
local agents. Another boasts that there are thirty-nine cities on this
planet where its machines can be bought at all times. We can our-
selves bear witness that, in such cities as Cincinnati, St. Louis and
Chicago, each of the well known makers has a spacious and elegant
establishment, with all the appurtenances to which we are accustom-
ed in New York. In Australia one of the New York companies, at
least, has an establishment of its own.

History of the Sewing Machine. 25

Gentlemen best acquainted with the business compute that the
whole number of sewing machines made in the United States, up to
the close of the year 1866, was about seven hundred and fifty thou-
sand. During the quarter ending December 10, 1866, the number of
machines made by licensed companies, as reported by them to Elias
Howe, was 52,219 ! This is above the rate of two hundred thousand
per annum. Mr. Howe is of opinion that about half as many more
are produced by unlicensed makers, including the Yankees, who,
driven from the United States by the Combination, have set up their
factories on the other side of the Canada line. If his conjecture is
correct, we are now producing the astounding and almost incredi-
ble number of one thousand sewing machines every working day, at
an average cost to the purchaser of sixty dollars each. The world,
however, is a very large place, and America still supplies it with
most of its sewing machines. When we visit single establishments
in New England wdiich employ five hundred machines, when we
learn that the shirt makers of one city, Troy, are now running more
than three thousand of them, and when we consider that there are in
the United States six millions of families, most of whom mean to have
a sewing machine when they can afford it, we can believe that even
so many as a thousand a day may be absorbed. About one-fifth of all
the machines made in the United States are exported to foreign coun-
tries. Elias Howe, Jr., Wheeler & Wilson, Grover & Baker, Singer
& Company, Wilcox & Gibbs, the Florence and others, are familiar
names in St. Petersburg, Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Mel-
bourne, Mexico, Rio Janeiro, Havana, Valparaiso, Vancouver’s Is-
land, and wherever else in the world many stitches are taken. For-
eigners can no more make a Yankee sewing machine than they can
make a Yankee clock. They have not the machinery— as curious as
the machine itself — by which each part of the apparatus is made at the
minimum of expense, and with perfect certainty of excellence. To
found a sewing machine manufactory in Europe which could com-
pete with those of America, would involve an expenditure of two
millions of dollars, and the expatriation of several of our American
foremen. It is only upon a great scale that machines can be made
well or profitably.

By means of the various improvements and attachments the sew-
ing machine now performs nearly all that the needle ever did. It
seams, hems, tucks, binds, stitches, quilts, gathers, fells, braids, and em-
broiders and makes button-holes. It is used in the manufacture of
every garment worn by man, woman or child. Firemen’s caps, the en-

History of the Sewing Machine.

gine hose which firemen use, sole leather trunks, harness, carriage
curtains and linings, buffalo robes, horse blankets, horse collars, pow-
der flasks, mailbags, sails, awnings, whips, saddles, corsets, hats, caps,
valises, pocket-books, trusses, suspenders, are among the articles
made by its assistance; but it is employed quite as usefully in mak-
ing kid gloves, parasols, and the most delicate article of ladies’ attire.

Elias Howe receiving the highest honors France can confer.

Some of our readers, perhaps, witnessed the show, in New York,
of the shoes, gaiters, and ladies’ boots made for the Paris Exhibition.
They were of all degrees of delicacy, from the stout Balmoral to the
boot of kid, satin or velvet ; and ever)' kind of stitch had been em-
ployed in their manufacture. Some of the stitches were so fine that
they could not be distinctly seen without a magnifying glass, and
some were as coarse and strong as those of men’s boots. The special
wonder of this display was that every stitch in every one of those

History of the Sewing Machine.

beautiful shoes was executed by the machine. Mr. E. C. Burt, who
made this splendid contribution to the Exhibition, assured us, and
will assure the universe in general in Paris, that all this variety of
elegant and durable work was performed on the “Howe Sewing Ma-
chine.” Upon ordinary boots and shoes the machine has long been
employed, but it is only recently that any one has attempted to apply
it to the manufacture of those dainty things which ladies wear upon
their feet when they go forth, armed cap-a-pie for conquest. A similar
change has occurred in other branches of manufacture. As operators
have increased in skill, and as the special capabilities of the different
machines have been better understood, finer kinds of work have been
done upon them than used to be thought possible. Some young
ladies have developed a kind of genius for the sewing machine ; the
apparatus has fascinated them ; they execute marvels upon it, as
Gottschalk did upon the piano. One of the most recent applications
of the machine is to the sewing of straw hats and bonnets. A Yankee
in Connecticut has invented attachments by which the finest braids
are sewn into bonnets of any form.

Attempts have been made to estimate the value, in money, of the
sewing machine to the people of the United States. Professor Ren-
wick, who has made the machine a particular study, expressed the
opinion seven years ago, on oath, that the saving in labor then
amounted to nineteen millions of dollars per annum. Messrs. Wheeler
& Wilson have published an estimate which indicates that the total val-
ue of the labor performed by the sewing machine, in 1863, was three
hundred and forty-two millions of dollars. A good hand sewer aver-
ages thirty-five, stitches per minute; the fastest machine, on some
kinds of work, performs three thousand a minute. There are in a
good shirt 20,620 stitches — what a saving to. do them at machine
speed! We glean from the volumes of testimony before us a few
similar facts. The stitching of a man’s hat by hand requires fifteen
minutes; by machine one minute. One girl can do the sewing by
machine of as many boys’ caps as ten men can do by hand. In fine
clothing for men the saving is, of course, not so great. Messrs.
Brooks Brothers, of New York, say that the making of a first-rate
overcoat by hand requires six days steady sewing; by machine, three
days. In the general work of a tailor the machine saves a journey-
man about four hours in twelve. Carriage trimmers testify that one
machine and three hands are equivalent to eleven hands. In the trass
and bandage business, which is one of very great extent and import-
ance, one machine is equal to ten women. In the manufacture of

History of the Sewing Machine.

bags for flour, salt and meal, of which the city of New York produces
two millions of dollars’ worth per annum, a machine does the work
of nine girls. In mere hemming, on a machine fitted expressly for
the purpose, one machine does the work of fifty girls.

Yet where is the woman who can say that her sewing is less a tax
upon her time and strength than it was before the sewing machine
came in? But this is not the machine’s fault; it is the fault of hu-
man nature. As soon as lovely woman discovers that she can set ten
stitches in the time that one used to require, a fury siezes her to put
ten times as many stitches in every garment as she formerly did.
Tailors and seamstresses, not content with sewing the seams of gar-
ments, must needs cover them with figures executed by “stitching.”
And thus it is that man never is, but always to be, blest. If with one
part of his brain he invents a labor-saving apparatus, the other lobes
immediately create as much new labor as the apparatus saves. But
it is this chase of Desire after Ability which keeps the world moving,
and tends always to equalize the lot of men. The sewing machine is
one of the means by which the indnstrious laborer is as well clad as
any millionaire need be, and by which working girls are enabled safe-
ly to gratify their woman’s instinct of decoration.

Elias Howe can justly claim that it was his invention which en-
abled the United States to put and keep a million of men in the field
during the war. Those countless garments, tents, haversacks, cart-
ridge. boxes, shoes, blankets, sails — how could they have been pro-
duced without the sewing machine? One day during the war, at
three o’clock in the afternoon, an order from the War Department
reached New York by telegraph for fifty thousand sand bags — such as
are used in field works. By two o’clock the next afternoon the bags
had been made, packed, shipped, and started southward.

In the early days of the sewing machine it was not supposed that
it would ever come into general use in families. The great cost of the
machine, and the supposed difficulty of learning to use it, were con-
sidered fatal obstacles to its general introduction into households.
The price has now been reduced to sixty-five dollars for the cheap-
est good machines; and it has been found that an intelligent woman
can learn to sew with it in an hour. An average seamstress becomes
proficient in the use of it in a month. For some time past, there-
fore, the great object of the celebrated makers is to produce the best
family machine. This is the point of rivalry among them.

A lady who leaves her home, after a breakfast consultation with
her husband, and goes forth to select a family sewing machine, has

History of the Sewing Machine.

undertaken an expedition which promises nothing but pleasure, but
it does not perform its promise. The sewing machine establishments
in Broadwmy are numerous and splendid. She pauses before a mag-
nificent marble store, with windows formed of single panes of plate
glass, in one of which are sewing machines, brilliant with polished
steel, silver plate and rosewood, and in the other are beautiful gar-
ments, covered with miraculous stitching, executed by those pretty
parlor ornaments. Yielding to these allurements she enters a grand
saloon, a hundred feet long, extending back to another street, and
covered with Wilton carpet, of better quality, probably, than that
which she treads in her own parlor. Perhaps the walls and ceilings
are frescoed ; and if they are not, they are richly papered and painted.
Sewing machines, in long rows, not too close together for convenient
moving about, agreeably dot the whole surface of the apartment, as
far as the eye can penetrate the gloom of the distance. Along the
wall, at the farther end of the room, she will discover, by and by, a
row of enclosed desks, like those of a bank, each desk being a small
apartment, as elegant and commodious as taste and money can make
it. These are for the dignitaries of the Company — the president, the
treasurer, the cashier, the general agent, the advertising clerk. Here
and there a young lady may be seen operating one of the machines,
in a graceful attitude, and with such perfect ease as to dispel the fears
of a purchaser most distrustful of her powers. The rapid and yet not
noisy click of the machine is cheering, and seems the appropriate
music of the place. 'And this grand hall is only one of many
apartments. The basement, and the cellar below the basement, each
as large as the store, are occupied as depositories, repairing shops,
packing rooms ; while in the story above the store may be found su-
perb rooms, wherein ladies who have bought a machine receive in-
struction in the art of using it — attending daily, if they choose, until
they have become proficient in hemming, sewing, braiding, making
button-holes, and in all the other varieties of needlework.

The clerk, who advances to wait upon the lady, soon learns her
errand and discovers her ignorance; indeed, she frankly avows her
ignorance. She has come out, she artlessly says, in pursuit of know-
ledge ; she desires to ascertain which is the best sewing machine in
existence for family use. Long practice has taught an intelligent and
ambitious young man how to deal with cases of this kind. He does,
in his inmost soul, believe that the sewing machines made by the com-
pany he serves are the very best in the world, especially for family use;
but he feels the delicacy of his situation. “Of course, madam, we are

History of the Sewing Machine.

interested parties, and it would be no more than ‘natural that we
should represent our machines to be the best in the market. But it is
no part of the policy of our company to disparage those made by our
neighbors. We are on friendly terms with them, and we are ready to
admit that some of them do make machines which for some purposes
are excellent. But when it comes to machines for family use, which
is our specialty, why then, madam, we cannot hesitate. Upon that
point there can be but one opinion. Nevertheless, we do not ask
ladies to believe what we say — we show them what our machine does,
and let it speak for itself.” Conciliated by such modesty and candor,
the lady watches with pleasure and admiration, while one dexterous
young lady runs up a seam, and another hems a sheet, and another
does a little quilting, and another makes a button-hole in half a min-
ute. The lady herself takes a seat at a machine, and is astonished to
find herself sewing at a rattling pace, “ without any previous instruc-
tion.”

She is convinced. She is perfectly satisfied. She sympathizes
with the tender compassion expressed by the clerk for the great num-
ber of ladies who have been deluded into buying other machines,
which, after distracting a household for many months, are now dis-
carded and consigned to the garret. “You see madam, advertising
can force a machine on the market; but, in the long run, real merit
overcomes all opposition.” She assents with her whole soul to this
proposition. It accords with what she has observed of human life.
She has even made the remark herself.

The impulse is strong within her to buy one of these peerless ma-
chines on the spot, and she has not the slightest doubt that she shall
do so in the course of the day. But it was agreed between her hus-
band and herself that she should examine all before purchasing; and
so, in obedience to a stern sense of duty, she resolves to go through
the form — the mere form — of looking at other machines. She feels
that she must be able to say that she has fulfilled her compact.

In another spacious and elegant saloon another accomplished
clerk claims for another machine precisely the same excellencies,
which other young ladies proceed to exhibit. If she ventures timidly
to intimate that she has been looking at a machine elsewhere, the ac-
complished clerk knows well how to proceed. He discourses at
large upon the merits of all the machines. He exhibits all the va-
rieties of needles employed in them, and expatiates upon the very
complicated machinery used to propel those needles. “Your own
common sense must tell you, madam, that the simpler a piece of

History of the Sewing Machine. 31

mechanism is, the less liable it is to get out of order, and the more
easily it is worked by an inexperienced person. Now, madam, our
machine contains eleven pieces less than any other in the market;
and your own common sense must tell you that every piece added to
a machine makes it more complicated, and more easily disarranged.
Don’t misunderstand me, madam, I do not say the machine you ex-
amined on the other side of the street was not a very good one in its
day; but some people, you know, when they have a pretty good
thing, are satisfied, and don’t keep up with the times. However, we
never speak ill ol our neighbors. We simply show what our ma-
chine is, and what it can do. Your own common sense must decide.”

And so he goes on, until the lady shudders to think what a narrow
escape she has made from falling a victim to the wiles of the brilliant
young man who first entertained her. By the time she has gone the
rounds of the ten or twelve sewing machine establishments in Broad-
way, between Canal street and Union Square, she is in a state of
mind to buy a wheel-barrow in order to end the agonizing struggle.

It is but just to add that all the well known makers have seized
the truth, that the only way in which a business permanently great
can be created, is by serving the public with systematic and scrupu-
lous fidelity. Nothing can exceed the care taken by them all that no
machine shall leave the factory which shall not be, as long as it lasts,
an advertisement for the company whose name it bears.

WHAT ADVANTAGES

HAS

The “Elias Howe” Machine

OVER OTHERS?

First. — The public know it to be durable. A conclusive evidence is,
twenty years have not placed second-hand “ Howe ” machines in
the market. It cannot be said of any other machine.

Second.— It contains the material for its own repair.

Third. — It has less wearing points than any other.

Fourth. — It draws up a stitch as you do by hand ; others do not.

Fifth. — You have perfect control over both threads; others have not.

Sixth. — It gives off thread in proportion to the thickness of fabric sewed,
thereby avoiding slow motion over seams, dropping stitches and
breaking of needles — a great objection to all other machines.

Seventh.— It sews a tight seam in cassimere, burying the thread on
either side, and then a tissue paper, without change of tension.

Eighth . — The presser foot is easily swung out of the way when you
set a needle or put under work. It is not so with any other.

Ninth. — Many new machine companies have had their rise and fall —
their machines once popular now scarcely known — others have
made radical changes in order to exist; while the Howe Machine
Company have adhered to the opinion of “ Elias Howe, Master
of Mechanics,” (“The machine is mechanically correct; does
not change,”) built addition after addition to their factory, and
to-day cannot supply the demand, although turning out over
six hundred machines a day — more than a machine a minute.

DUALITIES WHICH ARE PECULIAR TO

AND

recommend

The Howe Sewing Machine.

1. — Beauty arid excellence of stitch alike on both sides of the fabric

sewed.

2. — Strength, beauty and durability of seam that will neither rip nor

ravel.

3. — Complete control over both threads.

4:. — An entirely new rotary tension for the upper thread, which con-
tributes so much to that beauty and uniformity of stitch for
which the “ Howe Machine ” is so celebrated.

5. — A perfectly uniform tension in the shuttle, which does not vary
from a full to an empty bobbin — an objection so common to
other machines.

6— An automatic self-regulating take-up, that prevents missing of
stitches in crossing heavy seams.

7. — Short, straight and strong needles, not liable to break in passing

over heavy seams, as do the curved needles of other machines.

8. — Finer needles for the same thread than any other machine.

9. — Sewing equally well with any kind of thread.

10. — Economy of thread beyond that of any other machine.

11. — A Hemmer that will make any width of Hem or Fell.

12. — Braiding the most complicated patterns with any width or kind

of Braid.

13. — A Quilter that will adjust itself to any thickness of material.
u . — Tucking any fabric without injury or pucker.

15. — A Corder so constructed as to cord around very short curves,

even to square corners.

16. — Sewing the finest fabric without injury or pucker, and the

heaviest materials with the greatest ease. ...

17. — Compactness, simplicity and durability.

18 . — Ease of operation and management.

THE HOWE

IMPROVED

Family Sewing Machines,

T£HEycK- n Y

No. I .

LETTER A MACHINE.

(ornamented)

On Oiled Walnut Table.

Price, Plain, $65 00

Pearled and Plated, 70 00
Extra Pearled and

Plated, 75 00

This machine is capable
of the same range and va-
riety of work as the high-
er priced machines.

Many of the Sewing Machine Companies offer a machine poorly
finished at from five to ten dollars lower in price than any on our
list. The Howe Company do not pretend to make cheap machines.
Every machine represented by this Circular is equally well finished
(except in external decoration), has the same attachments, and is cap-
able of the same range and variety of work.

THE HOWE

Improrm^ Family E>mwimg laaiit

No. 3.

GOTHIC COVER.

Ornamented Machine and
Iron Stand, Black Wal-
nut Table and Drawer,

Gothic Cover, with

Lock, etc., $75 0o

Pearled and Plated. 8o oo
Extra Pearled and

Plated, 85 00

No. 2.

PANEL COVER.

Ornamental Machine and
Iron Stand, Black Wal-
nut Table and Drawer,

Paneled Cover with Lock,

etc., etc., $70 00

Pearled and Plated,. „ 75 00

Extra Pearled and
Plated, 80 00

THE HOWE

Family Sewing li©Ma@§#

No. 4.

GOTHIC COVER.

BOEDER TOP.

Ornamented Machine and
Iron Stand, Black Walnut
Table and Drawer, Gothic
Cover, with Lock, Border
Top Table, etc., . . . $70 00
Pearled and Plated,. 75 00
Extra Pearled and

Plated, ... 80 00

No. 5.

LETTER A MACHINE.

(ORNAMENTED.)

In Black Walnut (oiled),

Folding Cover,... $85 00
In Black Walnut
(polished), Folding
Cover, 90 co

Pearled and Silver Plated
A M ACHINE.

In Black Walnut (oiled),
Folding Cover,... $90 00
In Black _ Walnut
(polished), Folding
Cover, 95 00

THE HOWE

Im pro reel Family Sewing MaeMnes*

No. 6.

This cut represents
the “Folding Cover” as
it appears when open,
and forming table for
the convenience of the
operator. In figure 5
the Folding Cover is
represented as shut, and
thus completely enclos-
ing and protecting the
working parts of the
machine. A most novel
and ingenious arrange-
ment of a table and
cover combined.

No. 7.

LETTER A MACHINE.

Drop Leaf and Drawers, with
Box Top.

Black Walnut.

PRICES.

Ornamented Machine, $80
Pearled and Plated,.. 85
Extra Pearled and
Plated, 9°

THE HOWE

\mwm u

No. 8.

CABINET.

Prices from $100 to $200.

We furnish Cabinets similar to the above, with Box or Fold-
ing Tops, with Patent Doors, in Black Walnut,
Mahogany, Rosewood, Maple, Chestnut, &c.

THE HOWE

No. 9.

FOLDING TOP CABINET CASE.

The above cut represents the Cabinet Case and Folding Cover, as the same appears when thrown
open for use. These cases are most beautifully finished and conveniently arranged. In figure 8 the
Folding Cover is represented as shut, resembling the Box Top, and thus completely enclosing and
protecting the working parts of the machine.

Price List of Folding Cover Cabinet Case.

LETTER A MACHINE.

In Black Walnut (oiled), .$no oo

In Black Walnut or Mahogany (polished), .'. nj oo

LETTER A MACHINE, PEARLED AND SILVER PLATED.

In Black Walnut (oiled), 115 00

In Black Walnut or Mahogany (polished), 120 00

LETTER A MACHINE, EXTRA PEARLED AND SILVER PLATED.

In Black Walnut (oiled), 125 00

In Black Walnut or Mahogany (polished), 130 00

THE HOWE

LETTER MACHINE,

PEARLED AND PLATED.

In Full Case, Folding Top, Polished Black Walnut, extra

finish, and lined with Satin Wood. Price, $iSo oo

THE HOWE

LETTER B MACHINE.

Letter E Machine is
used extensively by Tail-
ors, sewing with equal
facility on heavy Beaver
Cloth and Marseilles,
Duck, Linen and Alpaca;
it is also used by Shoe
Manufactories making a
most beautful stitch on
English and French Last-
ing and Patent Leather.

Price, complete, $75 oo

LETTER C MACHINE.

Letter C is recommend-
ed for the heavier g-rades
of work, being much larg-
er than the B Machine.
It is universally acknow-
ledged to be superior to
all others for Boot and
Shoe making, Carriage
Trimmers, Harness mak-
ing, &c. It has two Pres-
sers with each machine —
one a wheel for Leather,
the other a flat Presser
for Cloth.

Price, complete. $90 00

THE HOWE

. LETTER E, OR CYLINDER MACHINE.

Price, complete, -$I5S GO

This machine has peculiarities which particularly adapt it to first-class Leather work. The con-
struction of the stitch made by this machine renders it more durable, in every respect, than that made
by any other shuttle or lock stitch machine, and preferable to stitching done by hand. The movements
are as near those performed by hand as it is possible for machinery to accomplish. The needle is
much smaller, and carries a much larger thread than any other needle used, draws the stitch firmly
into the material, and makes it more regular than when done by the best hand stitchers. The needles
used are nearer to the stitcher’s awl than any before applied to stitching, and the stitching can be
made to appear better and more regular than is possible otherwise.

The shuttle is the largest used in any machine, and carries a much larger quantity of thread, which
obviates somewhat the necessity of stopping in the middle of a piece of work. The tensions upon the
thread are perfectly under the control of the operator, and can be made to present the stitch alike on
both sides of the material, or otherwise, as may be desired.

The form of the machine being cylindrical, is particularly adapted to patent leather boot and
shoe fitting, also harness and saddlery werk, where the form oi the work must be strained while
stitching; and, in fact, for any peculiarly formed work to be stitched, this Cylindrical Machine
is the most appropriate.

It is also adapted to carriage trimming, traveling bag and satchel making, from the tact that
it carries a larger quantity of coarse thread, and the form admits of stitching part of the work
where other machines will not.

THE HOWE

Family Sewing Machines,

If it be inconvenient for the purchaser to visit our office, or that
of our Agent in the District in which the purchaser may reside, the
order may be forwarded by mail, and will be as faithfully filled as if
the selection had been made personally. Machines are forwarded to
any part of the country, and full instructions sent — which will enable
the most inexperienced to operate them. Cash or draft must accom-
pany the order. Machines may be sent, however, payment to be col-
lected on deliver)-, if satisfactory assurance is given that it will then
be made. Our interest not being second to that of purchasers of ma-
chines in their successful operation, we hold ourselves in readiness to
render any necessary and practicable assistance, by correspondence or
otherwise, for this purpose ; and, for faithfulness in this respect, refer-
ence is made to the tens of thousands now using these machines.

The Committee of the American Institute, New York, appointed
to examine Sewing Machines, arranged them according to the stitch
made, and the purpose to which the machine is to be applied, in four
classes — ist, 2d, 3d and 4th— -a classification indicating the general
order of merit and importance.

Class 1st includes the Shuttle or Howe Lock Stitch Machines, for family
use, and for manufacturers in the same range of purpose and material.
The Committee has assigned this class the highest rank, on account
of “ elasticity, permanence, beauty, and general desirableness of the
stitching when done,” and the wide range of its application.

Class 2d includes the Shuttle or Howe Lock Stitch Machines , for heavy
manufacturing purposes.

Class 3d includes the Double Chain Stitch Machines. The Grover &
Baker Machine is placed at the head of this class. The Committee
objects to the stitch made by this machine, inasmuch as it consumes
more thread than any other stitch, and leaves a ridge projecting from
one side of the seam, which must usually impair the durability of the
seam, and often the durability of the garments or other articles so
stitched — though some of the machines making this stitch can be
used very successfully for embroidery purposes.

Class 4th includes the Single Thread , Tambour or Chain Stitch
Machines (known as the Willcox & Gibbs). The tendency of the stitch
to ravel the Committee considers an objection so serious, that they
refuse to recommend the machines making it for any premium.

■

MACHINE

Silk, Cotton and Thread.

Having long felt a necessity for supplying not only the users
of our Machines, but the public generally with the best and most
reliable quality of Machine Silk, and knowing that the system
of selling by weight has been productive of much evil, we
have adopted the system erf graduating our sizes accurately,
and giving the same number of yards on each spool of the same
size, or letter of silk, irrespective of weight.

JJ'eighting Silk so heavily in the process of dyeing as to injure
the quality, has been practiced to such an extent by manufacturers,
that it has been difficult, if not impossible, for purchasers to
know what they were buying.

Moreover, as length, strength and a proper and uniform size
rather chan weight are the qualities required, it would seem
proper that this article should no longer be sold by weight.

Each spool of Silk, manufactured expressly for us, bears our
trade mark ; and the length , as printed thereon, is guaranteed.

It is, of course, to our interest, as well as the interest of our*
purchasers, that those who use our Machines should be supplied
with Machine Silk of superior quality, and it is with a view of
furnishing an honest article at a fair price, that we have become
Silk dealers on a large scale. If others offer to sell Silk at less
than our prices, purchasers tvill probably find it inferior in
quality, or deficient in quantity, or both.

We would also call attention to our stocks of Cotton and
Linen Threads, which will be found to be of the first quality
and low priced.

All of our Branch Offices and Agents throughout the country
keep a full stock of the above articles, as well as Needles,
Duplicate Parts of Machines, Oil and all Attachments, and we
would advise all those using our Machines to purchase their
supplies at our offices.

The Howf. Machine Co.

October, 1872.

'll C

THE ORIGINAL

MANUFACTURED BY

Mow* Machewb Company,

ELIAS HOWE, Jr.

DEPOT, 699 BROADWAY,

Corner Fourth Street. NEW YORK.

4*.

PRINCIPAL OFFICES:

LONDON, c 64 Regeiil Street.

LIVERPOOL, 07 Komi Street.

PARIS. 4S Boulevard lie Sebastopol.

HAMBURG,. . .23 & 25 Or. Jphannis Strasse.

ST. PETERSBURG, 4 Rue Micliel.

MOSCOW, Rue lie la Petrowka.

BRUSSELS, 103 Rue Ncuve.

RERUN, 17 Jeriisalemer Strasse.

MILAN. 11) forgo Vittorio Enianucle.

RIO RE JANEIRO, 00 Rua da Ouitanda.

NEW YORK 099 Broadway.

BOSTON 1-29 ^Washington St.

PHILADELPHIA. Pa 23 South 8th St.

BALTIMORE, Mil., . . 136 West Fayette St.

CINCINNATI. 0 179 West Itli St.

CHICAGO, 111., 941 Wabash Ave.

BROOKLYN, N. Y.. 41 S Fulton St.

ROCHESTER, N. Y.. 99 State St.

DETROIT, Midi.. 178 Jefferson Are.

PERU, Indiana.

SCRANTON. 504 Lackawanna Ave.

HARTFORD, 278 Main St.

ATLANTA, Ga.

NEW HAVEN, 97 Orange St.

NEWARK, SO 7 Broad St.

PROVIDENCE,

MILWAUKEE. Win.
CLEVELAND. 0.,..
BUFFALO, N. Y...

ALBANY,

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal..
ST. LOUIS, Mo..!
INDIANAPOLIS. I ml..

NASHVILLE, Teim

NEW ORLEANS, La.,..

MEADTILLE, Pa.,

PITTSBURG Pa..

SYRACUSE, N. Y

UTICA, N. Y

ELMIRA, N. Y

BINGHAMTON, N. Y...

LOUISTILLE, Ky

WASHINGTON. 1). ('.. 0:
TOLEDO. 0.
WHEELING, W. Va.

RALEIGH, N. C.,

CHARLESTON, S. C.

COLUMBUS, 0.

DUBUQUE,:...

PROVIDENCE,

11 S Wisconsin St.
230 Superior St.

405 Main St.

S9 N Pearl St.
. . .137 Kearney St.
12 Washington Ave.
0 W. Washington St.
o AY. Summer St.
. . ISIS Canal St.
Ill Chestnut St.

4 Sixth Sf.

.61 South Salina St.
205 Genesee St.

20 Lake Sts

.39 Court St.
160 Fourth St.
29 Pennsylvania Are.

Fayetteville st.

..97 South Htgrli St.

126 Main St.

. . .105 Westminster.

M. C. Rlehardsou & Co., Printers and Lithographers, Lockport, >. Y.

30165

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